The Influence of Maulana Jalaluddin Balkhi's View of the Unity of Being on the Works of Yunus Emre

Yunus Emre (720-638 AH), the Turkish poet whose years of youth coincided with Maulana’s years of aging, was a poet and a Sufi mystic, strongly influenced by Maulana’s beliefs, thoughts, and poems. He created some works on mysticism and Sufism in Turkish, which have opened a new chapter in Turkish mysticism and Sufism, while repeating his thoughts. Like Maulana, he could open a new chapter in the Turkish mystical literature by taking advantage of the rich culture of his country and its combination with the deep Islamic-mystical concepts. The influence of Maulana’s thought, known as pantheism, is clearly visible on Yunus Emre’s thought and works. Pantheism as one of the main topics of Islamic mysticism, which traversed the Islamic world from the west to the east, with all its variable forms (such as monotheism, manifestation, the eternality of God, and new creation) has played a main role in Maulana’s works, specially in the Mathnawi, and similarly in Yunus Emre’s works, like Risalat al-Nasiyeh and his book of poetry. After the translation of Yunus Emre’s poems containing pantheistic thought, from Istanbul Turkish and their comparison with Maulana’s poems, it was concluded that Yunus Emre was, undoubtedly, directly influenced by Maulana in representing his thoughts.